Sardar Patel Statue Inauguration: We Asked 7 Men How They'd Have Rather Spent Rs. 3,000Cr

As India gets ready to show off its very own “Iron Man”, the 182-metres tall statue of eminent Indian freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is being hailed as an engineering marvel. Located near the Narmada dam in Gujarat, it now holds the title of “the tallest statue in the world”.

Also known as the “Statue of Unity”, the monument is double the height of The Statue of Liberty in New York. Not just that, the construction of the monument was completed in a record time of just thirty three months. The monument has been built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd, and the government had to shell out a whopping sum of 3000 crore rupees for its construction!

Now, while the monument also rightly boasts of a three-star hotel, museum and audio visual gallery within its premises itself, it nonetheless makes us wonder if the hefty amount could have been utilised for better, and more urgent matters.

While Modi Ji decided to turn the crores into an iron statue, we asked 7 men to share how they would have liked to utilise the amount given a chance.

Well that was a mixed bag of responses, but we do agree with a few things some of these guys mentioned. With only 7.0 physicians and 17.1 nurses every 10,000 patients, India is in dire need of better healthcare facilities, especially in rural and semi rural areas. Investing and promoting low-cost education institutions could have been another way of putting the funds to better use.

Waste and infrastructure management needs to be looked into at the earliest. Gurgaon, Mumbai Assam's repeated struggles with annual floods, could have been treated too, to some extent. These are just some areas we have pointed out, but we're sure you can think of many more.

So, we'd like to ask you about how you'd spend the 3000 crores, given a chance.